


The Widowers, Indulged

by dornishsphinx



Category: Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Emotional Repression, Grief/Mourning, Implied Future Canonical Death, Implied background relationships, M/M, Master/Servant, Moving On, Widowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28302174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dornishsphinx/pseuds/dornishsphinx
Summary: A widowed Hector falls into bed with his spymaster.
Relationships: Hector/Matthew (Fire Emblem), Matthew & Lilina (Fire Emblem)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7
Collections: Fire Emblem Christmas Rare Pair Exchange 2020





	The Widowers, Indulged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bussy_princess_42069_xxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bussy_princess_42069_xxx/gifts).



“Are you... drunk?”

“Maybe a little,” said Hector’s oldest and best friend, swaying slightly like his body wasn’t quite sure where it was. His lips drooped with the same, unintentional air. “Lord Badon took offence that I hadn’t been drinking as much as him. Though he’s always looking to take offence to me in particular, truth be told. He had some plans for me and his daughter, apparently, which I ruined by falling in love with someone else.”

His words had trundled off into a mumble towards the end, but Lyn seemed to get the gist of it.

“I'll keep that point about drinks in mind for when Caelin next holds discussions. Though I'm pretty sure nothing I do will ever please him, aside from stepping down.”

She wasn’t wrong. Marquess Badon had been related to her great-uncle’s wife and had taken even more offence at his indomitable niece pushing him out than most; and when most still laughed derisively under their breath about Sacaean types whenever Marchioness Caelin entered the room, that was saying something.

Lyn's issues aside, Eliwood's cheek was concave against his fist as he idly moved his goblet back and forth, watching how the purple dregs of wine shivered.

Ah. 

Hector had never been the most intuitive or sensitive of men, but with age, he was getting a little better at sensing the mood. It was that time of year where Eliwood would get pensive. 

He and his wife had been a delicate sort of couple, ‘as a butterfly glided through the air with two chiffon wings beating in tandem.’ Someone a whole lot more poetic than Hector had said that in one of their odes to the Lord and Lady of Pherae; ‘ _just_ _trying to get themselves a job at court, I think, nobody with bad intentions,’_ Matthew had said after going off to dig into the poor bard's background despite Hector’s doubt that there was anything suspect about it. 

Politics and double-speak gave Hector a headache at the best of times; he was glad to shove Matthew onto the task of dealing with such things. 

What was true was that Eliwood and his wife had been the sort of dainty, kind couple that made their tough, coarse friends who still couldn't help having a soft spot for kind people want to look out for them. There was only so little a coarse person could do, though, when both of them had ended up so damnably delicate physically as well as in appearance. 

Eliwood coughed, bringing a hand to his mouth, as if to punctuate the point. 

“Eliwood,” said Lyn, hesitantly. “You know, if Mother hadn't left to marry Father and join the Lorca, then I'd never have been born. I never really considered that for the first few months after the fact. But then, being brought to Caelin, meeting that brute who wanted to marry her instead of my father…” She stared into the depths of her own cup as a seer might, regarding the vagaries of the past. “I did consider that she might have lived if she'd just stayed. Married that brute. Lived a longer life. But, would it have been fuller?”

“I understand,” said Eliwood. His voice was soft, but his brow had smoothed over until the only lines left on his face were natural, the strain and stress of illness. “Thank you for saying so. Although, really, I miss Father and Mother too. And Pherae as was. As it used to be. Now that Roy is getting older, it's just difficult to accept that there's no way he'd be able to know them as I did.” 

Lyn placed her hand on his other forearm, where it lay on the table.

“I miss a lot of things that are gone now too,” she admitted. “Even should I return, even if I want to pretend otherwise, I know won't be returning to the right place. Not when my family are gone.”

When Eliwood smiled, it was wan and tired, but genuine enough. He pressed his other hand on top of Lyn's for a moment, a little gesture of appreciation and trust.

Eliwood and Lyn were open and eloquent when it came to emotions and their grief. It made his own words feel clumsy and unfeeling in comparison, and if any even existed in the first place, they dried up before reaching his tongue. He downed the rest of his cup instead. 

***

It had been a good many months since Hector had last woken with someone in his bed. If he actively counted, it might even have worked out to be a few years at this point, but he didn’t like reflecting on melancholy things.

It wasn’t that there hadn’t been offers, and a lot of them, but it was one thing having a good time as his family’s most notorious lout and temporary heir until Uther got around to marrying, and quite another when he was the most eligible widower in Lycia and needed to undergo the embarrassment of asking Matthew to get his people to  _ vet  _ anybody who approached him. 

It wasn’t like it was something he could get away from. Ever since one woman who’d tried her luck had turned out to be a Bernese spy and he’d been forced to deal with Matthew’s smug looks and chuckles and offhand ‘ _ aren’t you glad you have a competent network, milord _ ’ comments for weeks—a time frame which he’d had the audacity to claim Hector was exaggerating—he’d come to the conclusion that actually thinking about accepting any such entreaties was more trouble than it was worth. 

“So. Caelin, and this supposed cousin of Lyn’s. What do you know about it?” 

He was starting to wish he had accepted one of them rather than going after someone on his own. At least he would have had little to say to someone he didn’t know, rather than his mouth somehow deciding that now was the best time to discuss politics, like they didn’t discuss that enough, and in tedious detail, outside his rooms.

There was a deep and judgemental silence. Then, Matthew’s lips quirked, clearly holding back a laugh, and Hector found himself realising, even before he responded, that if he couldn’t escape Matthew’s mockery on the topic of who he took to bed even when the one he took to bed  _ was  _ Matthew, he never would.

“I think you’re a bit confused, milord. You know that the seduction part of a spy’s job involves getting information out of  _ other  _ people, right?  _ You  _ can just ask.” 

He’d been right all along. It was just that whether it was someone he knew well or not, clearly this was more trouble than it was worth either way. 

“Yeah, I  _ know _ .” 

Matthew shifted, the covers falling from one of his shoulders. He patted Hector’s bare chest, eyes glittering with sly amusement. 

“I’m so sorry for doubting you, milord,” he said, with the least contrition Hector had ever heard. “I’m really cowering in fear over here, so I didn’t know what I was saying. Please spare me your wrath.” 

The curl of Matthew’s smile was so mischievous that Hector suddenly had the urge to indeed actually bring on some forthcoming wrath in his direction. So, he did. 

Well, he tried to, anyway. Matthew really was a slippery dastard when he wanted to be, so when he finally left that morning, it was with a sprightly, newly energised gait and a cheerful farewell to his lord, who was still cursing and attempting to sit up.

***

Matthew had always taken a lot to do with Lilina, even before her mother’s passing. Hector had never paid it much mind: Matthew took a lot to do with a lot of things, that was just how it was for a spy, especially the head of Ostia’s network.

At least, he didn’t pay it much mind until he overheard someone sighing over how Ostia’s intelligence network must have fallen into neglect if its spy-folk had decided to play at being nursemaids rather than perform their actual duties. 

Before he could decide whether that comment deserved a whack up the head, his attempts at aping Uther's calm reticence as a model for his role as Marquess Ostia be damned, someone else had delivered it for him. The voice of the head of Castle Ostia’s maids, a solid woman who Hector was fairly certain had always been old, had resounded like a whip bearing down on whichever unfortunate servant had started on the subject.

_ ‘You damn brat, how about a bit of consideration! Haven’t you heard what happened to that young lady of his, rest her soul? It’s not like they’ll be having a family of their own, and what harm is he doing by looking after the young mistress in place of those lazy maids? That poor girl was practically the young lady’s namesake, for crying out loud, and you’ll sit here doing no work and criticising him for doing twice what you do! Let him be, and enough of your gossiping!’ _

That had given him pause, and he’d henceforth taken to following around Lilina a bit more than usual. If someone criticising and someone defending him said the same thing, that probably meant it was true. And it was, when he'd actually started paying attention: it was as though Matthew had taken it upon himself to be Lilina's second shadow.

That was how he’d then been confronted with a second conversation, and second revelation. Matthew had been pressing things into the hand of a sniffly Lilina, her lip wobbling less and less with each treat passed over to her until she’d finally started giggling. The breath puffing out sent sugar dust into the air, and when she’d twirled around, the lower half of her face was a dead ringer for some half-shaven old man.

He’d bit back his own hearty laughter at the sight, still attempting to lurk around a bit rather than interrupt their bonding. Oswin, however, had just sighed.

_ ‘Well _ ,’ Oswin had said, ‘ _ At least your indulgence of Lady Lilina doesn’t involve you letting her run wild. _ ’ 

‘ _ Don’t know what you mean. _ ’

Hector had done, however, with a flash of sudden insight. A lot of uncharacteristic inner thought and consideration later—the sharp, fond twinkle of his eyes and light fun he’d always poked in his direction when he ran off on some adventure as opposed to other servants and retainers’ reluctant acquiescence—he’d determined that if Matthew found his actual personality charming, then there hadn’t really been much point in all that inner thought and consideration compared to just going for it. 

And, as it turned out, that had worked just fine. 

***

The next time he saw Matthew,  he had just been leaving the conference of Lycian lords that he’d grudgingly allowed to be held at Castle Ostia for the sake of being able to catch up with the nobles he actually liked, looking out the window, and immediately harrumphing at the sight of Lilina crowning Eliwood’s boy with a daisy chain.

“She should have more of a rivalry with that boy. He might get ideas.” 

“Of course, milord,” said Matthew, who, as usual, appeared at his side unbidden. That it was the first time he’d seen him since he’d left Hector’s rooms didn’t seem to have changed his demeanour one bit, thankfully. He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if it had. “I’m sure she’s always tossing him around behind your back. Hiding fighting habits is a family tradition.” 

Yes. Matthew had always had that annoying habit of smirking at him whenever he came back from the fighting rings; asking with an innocent tone if he’d been up to much, saying  _ ‘yes, of course, up to your studies like a good young master’  _ before he could respond, pushing a vulnerary into his hands, patting his knuckles, and disappearing off before Hector could even try to scuffle with him and that smug look on his face.

“Were you snooping around in our guests’ belongings while we were at the meeting again?” 

“Of course, what do you take me for? Incompetent?” 

Matthew seemed ready to fall into step with him and reveal all the other lords and ladies’ illicit secrets, so Hector started walking. As he did, he couldn’t help recalling those days again. Those vulneraries, now that he thought on it, had always been soothing and timely; after all, he’d never had the chance to ease his smarting knuckles and aching muscles before having to scarper back on to Castle Ostia. 

No doubt Matthew would force several of them on him out of concern for his mental wellbeing if he were to say thank you so many years later. Instead, he looked out when they reached the next window, out across the fields they’d once escaped his brother’s orders across. “You never told him?” 

“He never asked.” 

Hector, after contemplating that enormous statement, found himself wondering what questions exactly he should be asking about Lilina. When he looked at him suspiciously, Matthew only smiled harder. 

“Really! Flights of fancy like that are common in noble children. So long as you still kept up with your studies, the martial experience you got out of it would make up for it. Though maybe I had a bit too much confidence in that first part.”

Before Hector could smack him on the arm, Matthew stepped easily out of reach to flick some imaginary dust off a vase before continuing on. Only the tiny curl of his lip suggested he knew that Hector knew that he knew he’d danced out of reach in perfect time. He then stepped back with the confidence, that Hector really had let get out of hand, that he wouldn’t try and whack him again.

“Besides, you’re really bad at disguising yourself, so your competitors were always too terrified about giving Lord Uther’s baby brother the ittiest of bitty bruises to try anything.” His eyes dropped to Hector’s waist, and Hector tried very hard to not think about the feeling which ran up his spine when he reached out and tapped Wolf Beil’s heft. “And look how it’s turned out. A fine lord with a fine axe, who walks his own path through the  _ savage garden _ . I’d say I made a good decision. More or less.” 

That last part came with a small shift in his expression away from cheer, and away from Hector entirely, that Hector decided not to look into too hard either. 

“Who says I'm bad at disguising myself?” 

“Oh, sorry. Of course, milord is great at disguising himself.” The shadows around Matthew’s lips twisted into the shape of a smile. “Milord is also very good at lurking up unused stairwells, lingering around corners and hiding behind rosebushes in the west garden while trying to swat away a bee without making noise for five solid minutes.”

“...Well, I didn’t.” 

“Swat the bee or make noise?” Hector rolled his eyes and a laugh huffed out of Matthew’s mouth, solidifying and curling outwards in the cold air. “You know, Lilina would be happy if you spent time with her. Time that she knew you were spending with her. Unless… the real issue is that you have a problem with me hanging around her so much rather than taking on other tasks closer to my area, in which case I'll of course focus entirely on my spymaster duties. But you do have to say something, or I won’t know to do so.”

“I don't have a problem with it,” he said, surprised, both by Matthew assuming it and the ready way the words came to his mouth. Then again, Matthew had once been Hector's own coddling shadow, so perhaps familiarity bred exceptions and trust as well as contempt. That other thing they got up to together now didn’t hurt, either. “Though I’m surprised you’re here and not down there right now.”

Matthew’s smile flickered onto his face again. “Well, she’s not the only one I have to look out for. Far more cutthroats inside the castle walls right now than outside them, if you ask me. And you’re the one who’s let them all in, so I can’t deal with them how I’d personally like.” 

“Well, I can’t beat them all up, so that makes two of us.” 

Their laughs formed a white cloud in the air, rising up and eventually dissipating out of sight. 

***

When Armads was repatriated to Durban’s nation, Matthew made an argument for taking it there himself, his smile pristinely amiable and his words light-hearted. He ruffled Lilina’s hair goodbye, and dared ruffle her father’s too, ducking out of the way to avoid any reprisals with a cheery wave. 

When he stepped off the boat onto the territory of the Western Isles, his boots sunk deep into the wet sand. Each step of the trail he left was an unforgettable sensation, spongy and gritty and making his calves shiver like there was something they feared happening across. He covered his mouth and nose with a cloth mask before he made his way inside the cave; the gases were so thick they billowed out when he broke his way in. They wafted around as he moved and clung to his clothes. Or perhaps that was the fingers of the ghosts who they had felled, who knew? Ghosts were real, after all. He'd seen them, heard them speak. 

"..." 

When he found his way to the place where Hector had first laid eyes upon it, he pulled Armads out from its bindings and thrust it onto the ground with an unceremonious clatter. He kicked the hilt, sending it skittering around the weighty blade; the sound was like a creature trying and failing to clamber up out of the darkness and back towards him. 

The look Matthew sent it was more poisonous than the air around them, unrestrained and vicious, like a dark, jagged crystal formed from pressurised hatred kept hidden deep in his core. Then, he turned on his heel, and had put his usual knowing smile back on by the time he reached anyone’s sight. 

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas!! And ahhh, you've given me the excuse to write about Hector/Matthew, thank you so much! I do love their relationship despite there not seeming to be much fic about it, sadly (the Oswin/Matthew support made me like them So Much, I love Matthew's snark but how there's "coddling", and wanting to keep him safe and out of trouble in Ostia, and liking his brash personality despite it causing his vassals/servants/retainers trouble. And then I considered that Matthew eventually moving on from Leila's sudden demise while being Ostia's spymaster is the gist of his one paired ending... along with a little of the inherent tragedy of FE6's existence whenever talking about pretty much Anyone from the FE7 cast...


End file.
